Woeful trend Down Under
Championship games having forced my way into the T20 side.”
The clearest confirmation that Parkinson has both the head and heart required to bowl in T20 cricket came on August 11 at Headingley when he took 4-23 in Lancashire Lightning’s 19-run defeat to Yorkshire Vikings.
Short-form Roses matches can be bedlam for visiting bowlers but last August’s match was particularly trying for Parkinson, who was brought on after seven overs with Yorkshire rather well placed on 85 without loss.
Despite having to bowl with a wet ball, he dismissed four of the top five in the Vikings’ order and if he couldn’t change the outcome of the game, he certainly won plaudits for the way he coped in the toughest of circumstances. It is that sort of experience which is now standing him in excellent stead as he tries to cope with the unforgiving Sydney first grade
“I was nervous because it was my first Roses game and my first game on Sky,” he admitted. “But when you see the ball flying everywhere you adopt the mentality that you’ve nothing to lose really.
“I might have been more nervous if they hadn’t got 80-odd off seven overs but everything I tried came off. On the other hand, if Adam Lyth had hit me for six instead of being caught on the boundary I probably wouldn’t have bowled a second over. As it was, getting players like Lyth, Sarfraz Ahmed and David Willey out made it a great day.
“It’s always nice to perform with a wet ball because if you can manage to do that, you can bowl spin with a dry one. But we’re professionals and if you’ve played a lot of league cricket up north, you’re used to wet balls. It’s often soaking wet on a Saturday.”
Parkinson is currently playing his cricket in a very different environment from Heaton, the Bolton League club where he learned his cricket, or Urmston and Egerton, the clubs he subsequently joined. But he sees Sydney Grade Cricket as another opportunity to develop his professionalism in the broadest sense. “It’s a test to live on my own for five months and to play grade cricket in Sydney, which I’d heard was one of the toughest leagues in the world,” he said.“It went well for Mason Crane and, fingers crossed, it’ll do something similar for me.
“I spoke to Mason and he only had good things to say about it. Peter Such, the ECB’s lead spin bowling coach, is involved in the selection for the ECB placement and it’s a boost to be recognised as worth one of those.
“I’m keeping in regular contact with Peter and also receiving coaching from Stuart MacGill. But it’s up to me what I get out of it and down to me whether I come back a better cricketer.”